Gallop v Newport City Council

Factual and Procedural Background

This appeal concerns the dismissal of the Appellant's disability discrimination claim by the Employment Tribunal (ET) and the subsequent dismissal of his appeal by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). The Appellant was employed by Company A and suffered from work-related stress and depression, which he claimed amounted to a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA). The ET found that the Appellant was a disabled person from July 2006 but dismissed the discrimination claims on the basis that Company A did not have the requisite knowledge of the disability, relying on advice from Occupational Health (OH) advisers that the Appellant was not disabled. The EAT upheld the ET's decision. The Appellant appeals against these decisions, challenging the legal correctness of the knowledge requirement and the reliance on OH opinions.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether an employer has sufficient knowledge of an employee's disability if it knows the factual elements constituting disability under the DDA, even if it does not know the legal consequences of those facts.
2. Whether an employer is entitled to rely on medical advisers' opinions that an employee is not disabled to negate the knowledge requirement under the DDA.
3. Whether the ET erred in law by equating the employer's knowledge with the occupational health advisers' opinions rather than the actual or constructive knowledge of the facts constituting disability.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• The employer's knowledge should be assessed based on awareness of the facts constituting the disability, not on whether the employer knew the legal classification of those facts as a disability.
• The ET failed to properly consider the employer's actual or constructive knowledge of the disability facts and instead relied improperly on unreasoned medical opinions.
• Occupational Health advisers' opinions that the Appellant was not disabled were unreasoned and did not address the statutory criteria, thus the employer could not rely on them to deny knowledge.

Respondent's Arguments

• The employer was entitled to rely on the expert medical opinions of its OH advisers, who repeatedly advised that the Appellant was not disabled under the DDA.
• The knowledge imputed to the employer through OH was that the Appellant was not disabled, not that he was.
• The ET's conclusion that the employer lacked the requisite knowledge was a permissible finding supported by the evidence and did not amount to perversity.

Table of Precedents Cited

No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court analysed the statutory framework under the DDA, emphasising that for an employer to be liable for disability discrimination, it must have actual or constructive knowledge of the facts constituting the employee's disability as defined in section 1(1) and Schedule 1 of the DDA. The court agreed with counsel that the employer need not know the legal classification of those facts but must know the factual elements (impairment, substantial and long-term adverse effect, and impact on day-to-day activities).

The ET had concluded that the employer could rely on unreasoned medical opinions from OH advisers stating the Appellant was not disabled, and thus lacked the knowledge required to engage discrimination protections. The court found this approach legally incorrect. The OH opinions were unreasoned and did not clarify which statutory criteria were or were not met. Therefore, the employer could not simply accept these opinions as negating its knowledge of the underlying facts.

The court held that the employer has a duty to make its own factual judgment on whether the employee is disabled and cannot merely rubber-stamp unreasoned medical opinions. The ET failed to inquire properly into the employer's actual or constructive knowledge of the factual elements of disability and erred in law by equating knowledge with the OH advisers' opinions.

The court further noted the importance of employers seeking specific, practical advice from clinicians addressing the statutory criteria, so as to properly inform their judgment.

Holding and Implications

The court ALLOWED the appeal, setting aside paragraph 2 of the EAT's order and paragraph 2 of the ET's judgment. The case was remitted to the ET for a re-hearing of the discrimination claims with directions to properly assess whether the employer had actual or constructive knowledge of the facts constituting the Appellant's disability.

The direct effect is that the employer's reliance on unreasoned medical opinions cannot conclusively negate knowledge of disability facts. No new precedent was established beyond clarifying the correct legal approach to the knowledge requirement under the DDA.